Read Online Solo by Clyde Edgerton - Free Book Online

seconds.)
    First, Captain Dunning demonstrated the entire process of getting into and out of the spin. He raised the nose, pulled the throttles to idle, and as the aircraft began to stall, he pulled the stick back farther and farther (to hold the nose up). Then, at the last second before a full stall, he popped in the left rudder. (It could as easily have been the right.) The nose dropped, but not much, and the aircraft started a flat turn (little or no bank) to the left and then sped up. Both wings were level or almost level, the nose was slightly down, and we were in a full-fledged spin. What I saw in front of me was the earth moving rapidly from left to right.
    This is a condition an airplane will not “fly out” of. Without recovery, it will continue until it hits the ground.
    Captain Dunning then demonstrated the recovery procedure while he talked.
    “First determine direction of spin. The ground is moving left to right, so we’re spinning left. See . . . see, we’re spinning left. Keep the stick back in your lap, and apply a very firm full opposite rudder.” He
stomped
the right rudder. The whole world out there still moved left to right, but more slowly than before.
    “Now we hold the rudder in for one complete revolution. You find a spot out there and wait for it to come back around. That lake and the smoke.”
    We waited as the aircraft spun.
    “Okay, there’s the lake. Now, with both hands,
ram
the stick forward as far as it’ll go.” When Captain Dunning slammed the stick forward to the stop, the nose dipped and we pulled negative g’s. We were thrust upward, but our seat belts, tightly cinched, held us down. Dirt and other loose items floated up—a potential hazard, as something could wedge itself into the wrong place and cause problems with the throttle, stick, or rudder pedals.
    “If the recovery has been executed briskly,” said Captain Dunning, grunting, a bit tense, “the aircraft now enters a controlled spiraling dive, see, gaining speed, and we can bring . . . bring the wings level and then slowly but firmly pull out of the dive . . . There . . . there we go. Add power, and now let’s climb back up and you try it. I’ll talk you through it. You have the aircraft.”
    “I have the aircraft.”
    If we failed at the first recovery—in other words, if we didn’t break the spin—then we were to try again. The second of two tries should get us out of the spin before we reached ten thousand feet above the ground. If we tried several times and were still in the spin below ten thousand feet and were not recovering, then the procedure called for us to eject. Pulling the eject handle between my legs would propel my seat and me up through the Plexiglas canopy. The parachute would open automatically and I’d be separated from the seat. At least that’s what they told us.
    A problem sometimes encountered during spin recovery was determining the direction of the spin. I couldn’t be hesitant. During the heat of recovery, I couldn’t afford to think this way: If the earth is coming from left to right, does that mean I’m turning left and must press the right rudder? Or does that mean I’m turning right and must press the left rudder? Or the right?
    Pressing the wrong rudder would only wrap me more tightly into the spin—as the altimeter rapidly wound down.
    To further complicate matters, if somehow in entering the spin the aircraft became inverted, then everything had to be done
backward.
All the lefts became rights and vice versa. And spinning downward, upside down, you didn’t want to wait too long to eject—and be propelled toward rather than away from the earth.
    During the spin training in the T-37, it was not unusual for a student pilot or two to throw in the towel—wash out—and head for navigator training.
    • • •
    E JECTION, AS MENTIONED , would send you, in your seat, through the canopy. The seat would break the canopy. Then you’d automatically be separated from your seat,